The investigations in the East Texas Basin are part of the broader salt dome studies underway in the Gulf Coast Interior Salt Basin of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, constituting one regional element of the national Nuclear Waste Repository Program. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) aims to select one salt site for site-specific evaluation as a nuclear waste repository. This report focuses on the salt dome program in East Texas and outlines some preliminary conclusions reached on dome suitability during FY1980.
The 1980 program to investigate the tectonic, geologic, and hydrogeologic stability of salt domes in the East Texas Basin was divided into four subprograms:
1. Subsurface geology.
2. Surficial geology, remote sensing, and geomorphology.
3. Hydrogeology.
4. Salt dome characteristics.
Integration of the results from these four subprograms will determine the general suitability of salt domes in the East Texas Basin for further evaluation as a potential nuclear waste repository and will provide information on specific candidate domes in the East Texas Basin.Bureau of Economic Geolog
